Read Death Sits Down to Dinner Online
Authors: Tessa Arlen
Death Sits Down to Dinner
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To Chloe, Toby, and Georgia
Montfort House in Belgravia, London
Clementine Elizabeth Talbot, the Countess of Montfort: our amateur sleuth, welcome everywhere in fashionable London society
*Mrs. Edith Jackson: housekeeper at Iyntwood, Lord Montfort’s country estate in Buckinghamshire, and Lady Montfort’s fellow sleuth
Ralph Cuthbert Talbot, the Earl of Montfort: Lady Montfort’s long-suffering and loving husband
Harry Talbot, Viscount Lord Haversham: the Talbots’ only son and heir and enthusiastic aviator
Mr. White: the Montfort House butler
*Mrs. “Ginger” Harding: the Montfort House cook
First footman
Second footman
Edna Pettigrew: the Countess of Montfort’s lady’s maid
Herne: the chauffeur
Mr. Ernest Stafford: contract landscape architect at Iyntwood
*Cooks and housekeepers were referred to as Mrs. out of respect even if they were unmarried.
The House at Chester Square in Belgravia, London
Hermione Kingsley: elderly patroness of England’s largest charity for orphans, the Chimney Sweep Boys
Adelaide Gaskell: Miss Kingsley’s pretty, paid companion
Mr. Jenkins: Miss Kingsley’s geriatric butler
Martha: first housemaid
Eliza: second housemaid
First footman: working name John*
Second footman: working name James*, real name Eddy Porter (also known as the Clumsy Footman)
Macleod: chauffeur
*Often footmen did not work under their own names, but worked under the house names. James and John were typical working names for footmen.
Other guests invited to Hermione Kingsley’s party to celebrate Winston Churchill’s birthday
Winston Churchill: First Lord of the Admiralty
Captain Wildman-Lushington: Royal Marine, aviator, and Mr. Churchill’s flying instructor
Captain Sir Parceval Vetiver: punctilious aide to Winston Churchill
Marigold Meriwether: Vetiver’s superbly dressed young fiancée
Sir Reginald Cholmondeley: old friend of Hermione Kingsley and chairman of the board of governors for the Chimney Sweep Boys
Aaron Greenberg: sophisticate and extremely rich banker
Veda, Lady Ryderwood: a beautiful widow with a superb singing voice
Trevor “Tricky” Tricklebank: Hermione Kingsley’s nephew and only surviving member of her family
Jennifer Wells-Thornton: the young woman Tricky is expected to marry
Maud, Lady Cunard: wife of Sir Bache Cunard of the Cunard Shipping Line, and rich American patroness of the arts and arch gossip
Lord and Lady Wentworth: rich aristocrats
Sir Vivian Hussey: patron of the arts
Friends, well-wishers, and policemen
Chief Inspector Hillary: educated and intelligent member of Scotland Yard’s CID
Mavis Biggleswade: matron of Kingsley House, home of the Chimney Sweep Boys
Olive, Lady Shackleton: friend of Lady Montfort
Gertrude, Lady Waterford: friend of Lady Montfort
Sir Thomas Beecham: conductor of his own orchestra, man about town, and lover of Lady Cunard
Gladys Robinson, the Marchioness of Ripon: charismatic patroness of the arts who brought the Ballets Russes to London
Nellie Melba: Australian opera singer and international superstar
A wet and miserable late-autumn day had turned into a bitterly cold winter night as the sun sank unseen below a horizon obscured by a bank of thick gray clouds. The wind veered to the east and the first strong gust gathered force from the estuary and bellowed up the Thames, blowing sprays of puddle water into the air and plastering wet leaves against the legs of those unfortunate enough still to be hurrying homeward.
Tucked away in the quiet comfort of her bedroom at Montfort House, Clementine Talbot, the Countess of Montfort, and her maid, Pettigrew, were absorbed in the leisurely business of dressing her for dinner. As they went diligently about their work, engrossed in the particulars of choosing the right shoes for her evening dress and making difficult decisions on the appropriate jewels for the occasion, they enjoyed an intermittent exchange of information on the new cook who had recently taken up her appointment at Montfort House.
“Her food is quite
nice,
I suppose, considering how young she is and not even French, but from somewhere in the north of England; some
industrial
town like Newcastle or … Sheffield.” Clementine suppressed a smile at Pettigrew’s grudging praise. Her maid viewed all changes in the Talbots’ London house servants’ hall with skepticism and was not naturally given to enthusiasm.
The search for the new cook had been a long and worrying business. Clementine was well aware there was little enough to entice her husband away from the family estates at Iyntwood to London. But once convinced he should make the effort, it did not do for him to eat his dinner at the Carlton or White’s, where he heard horribly exaggerated accounts from his friends of lucrative rents garnered from the lease of their London houses to the nouveaux riches.
“Lord Montfort must not eat all his meals at one of his clubs when he comes up to town, White,” Clementine had reminded the Montfort House butler when after weeks of interviews he had found no exceptional candidate. “It prompts him to question the prudence of keeping on the expense of a full establishment in London.” She knew the butler would understand the wisdom of
this
thinking. “It is absolutely vital that a first-rate cook be found before his lordship’s next visit.”
White had certainly more than redoubled his efforts. And when the perfect candidate accepted an offer of employment a collective sigh of relief had resounded throughout the household belowstairs that their future employment was once again secure. And upstairs, Clementine had given thanks that she would continue with a house of her own to stay in whenever she chose to come up to town.
Persuaded by his wife that the domestic crisis was over and breakfast, luncheon, and dinner at Montfort House would no longer regrettably remind him of Eton, Lord Montfort had come up to London for the first time in months. He had enjoyed a delectable dinner of veal consommé, succulent trout in crisp blanched almonds, game quenelles and truffles, followed by a roast goose with a red-currant glaze, and pronounced that London was almost civilized.
“Her food not only tastes sublime, it looks wonderful, too,” Clementine said, regarding herself critically in the looking glass. She wondered if wearing her hair piled high toward her forehead was flattering now that she had reached her forties.
“She’s got her little ways though,” said Pettigrew and wrinkled up her nose. Clementine knew, of old, that her maid could never resist taking some of the gilt off the gingerbread; it was almost expected of her.
“I think you should wear the diamond circlet when we do your hair this way, m’lady.” She held her choice over Clementine’s head, and they both gazed thoughtfully into the glass.
Clementine shook her head. “No, it’s a bit too ornate for this evening.” Pettigrew produced a more modest affair. “Yes, that will do nicely.” She returned to their earlier conversation. “What little ways?”
“Well, nothing at all really, m’lady. She gave us a nice beef stew for dinner the other day for servants’ dinner, called it by some French name. It had two bottles of wine in it.” And catching Clementine’s startled look, Pettigrew used her fading-away voice to say, “Oh no, m’lady, not the good stuff.” And feeling that more explanation might be required: “Just some of the ordinary from France she said it was. Does wonders for the cheaper cuts of beef.” Clementine’s shoulders came down a notch, and Pettigrew continued, “Anyway, she announced at servants’ dinner today that she would prefer us to call her by her nickname.” She paused and glanced at Clementine in the looking glass.
A little warning bell began to chime in the distance and Clementine struggled for outer calm. It was hard enough to find and keep good servants in London without making things any more complicated than they already were. There was a shortage of talented cooks who were also sober, honest, and didn’t cause havoc belowstairs. Now one merely prayed that the new candidate would fit into the claustrophobic and tightly knit group whose members made up her servants’ hall. But Pettigrew no doubt expected a reaction to her tidbit and Clementine dutifully obliged.
“Her nickname? Oh really? How awfully nice of her!” Clementine said in a bright sort of voice. While it was important to take an interest in the lives of those who worked for her, she believed it best not to involve herself in the servants’ social interaction with one another, it only made muddles.
Pettigrew, concentrating on the finishing touches to Clementine’s hair as she fixed the diamond half-circlet firmly into place, took a moment to reply, “Yes, m’lady, she is a nice young woman, very friendly. But as Mr. White says, it’s important to observe decorum and the proper respect for each other.” Pettigrew was a traditionalist, a member of the old school of personal servants, and would be appalled, thought Clementine, if anyone other than her family called her Edna. She hurried to agree.
“Of course, he’s absolutely right; important to observe social convention, saves a lot of misunderstandings in the long run. What
is
her Christian name by the way?”
“I think it might be Ethel, m’lady. But she said, ‘Just call me Ginger.’” Pettigrew pulled her mouth into a tight knot as she slid in the last hairpin and lifted her eyes to gaze with reproach at Clementine’s face reflected in the looking glass.
“Ginger,” Clementine was puzzled until she recalled her only meeting with the new cook. “Ah yes, all that glorious titian hair. So do you? Call her Ginger, I mean.” She was careful to maintain only a polite interest.
“No, m’lady, we most certainly do not.” The lines around Pettigrew’s mouth deepened. “We may not be a sophisticated bunch belowstairs, but we have our standards. We call her Mrs. Harding, as we ought.”
“And very right and proper, too,” was Clementine’s only comment.
They lifted their heads as they heard a powerful gust of wind chasing down the street.
“Hark at that, m’lady, wouldn’t be surprised if we lost a few roof tiles tonight.” Pettigrew, happily complacent they were not her roof tiles, searched for the left hand to the pair of Clementine’s evening gloves. The bedroom windows rattled in their heavy frames as another gust clouted the front of the house.
“Yes, it’s definitely taken a turn for the worse,” Clementine observed, equally unworried. “Thank you, Pettigrew. No need to wait up, we’ll be back late. But perhaps come in before I leave to make sure I have everything.” A small puff of smoke blew back down the chimney.
Pettigrew laid the gloves on the dressing table, retrieved Clementine’s evening handbag from the bed, made a quick inventory of its contents, and laid it next to the gloves. She reached over to her mistress and carefully smoothed the neckline at the back of her dress, then hurried off to the servants’ hall for a nice cup of hot cocoa and, guessed Clementine, for further assessment of Ginger’s other interesting eccentricities.